The Weekend Read: Death by Debt

"WE HAVE a system of government in which everybody has to give a little bit." So said Barack Obama at the start of this week. But parse that sentence. Does the president mean that America already has a system in which everybody has to give a little bit? Or does he mean only that it ought to have such a system? It is not too much to say that the country's economic well-being hangs on the answer. - Economist